Blog Posts

After winning Germany’s federal elections on September 22nd, Chancellor Angela Merkel is in the middle of difficult coalition talks to form a new government. Because Merkel’s party, the Christian Democrats, did not win an absolute majority in parliament, it must...

Germany’s energy transition (or “Energiewende”) is the most ambitious current effort to put a large industrial economy onto a sustainable energy path, recognizing the 21st century reality of a climate-constrained world. If the world’s fourth largest economy demonstrates that this shift is possible without undermining economic growth, it could be a major factor in enabling a global energy transition. And with climate change intensifying – 2012 was the 36th straight year of above-average global temperature, and 2011 and 2012 each produced more extreme weather events costing over one billion dollars each than any other year in recorded history – reducing greenhouse gas emissions is imperative for any future energy system. Thus, the Energiewende is critical to the ongoing fight against global warming.

Germany is in the midst of an unprecedented clean energy revolution. Thanks to the “Energiewende,” a strategy to revamp the national energy system, Germany aims to reduce its overall energy consumption and move to 80 percent renewable energy by 2050. The country has already made considerable progress toward achieving this ambitious goal.

In fact, other countries like the United States can learn a lot from the German clean energy experience. That’s why WRI is hosting a German energy speaking tour in the United States this week, May 13th-17th. Rainer Baake, a leading energy policy expert and key architect behind the Energiewende, and WRI energy experts will travel to select U.S. cities to share lessons, challenges, and insights from the German clean energy transformation. They will be joined by Dr. Wolfgang Rohe and Dr. Lars Grotewold from Stiftung Mercator.

Last week, ministers from 50 countries convened in South Korea for a “Pre-COP” meeting to prepare for the upcoming UNFCCC conference in Doha, Qatar (COP 18). Ministers confirmed their commitment to negotiate a new international climate framework by the end of 2015, as outlined in the Durban Platform agreed to at COP 17 last year.

While the Durban Platform gave new momentum to multilateral climate negotiations, the emissions gap remains large: The greenhouse gas reductions countries are currently willing to commit to don’t add up to the global reductions needed to limit warming to 2° C above pre-industrial temperatures. It’s clear that leaders need new ways to increase ambition enough to close this gap and reinforce the UNFCCC.

In this context, we are seeing a renewed interest in “clubs” – smaller groups of countries coming together to act on climate change, complementing the UNFCCC process. The question, though, is whether such clubs can make real progress toward closing the emissions gap.

At the United Nations climate conference (COP17) in Durban, delegates will negotiate detailed decisions on measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV). In another post, we review the importance of MRV and the main decisions facing negotiators in Durban. As negotiators for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) consider new MRV mechanisms, they may not need to reinvent the wheel.

This piece, by Pete Maniego and Lutz Weischer, originally appeared in the Manila Bulletin.

The global energy system is undergoing a transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. There are clear signs that the pace of change is accelerating. 2009 was the second year in a row that more money was invested worldwide in renewable electricity generation projects than in fossil fuel-powered plants, according to data published by the United Nations.

Recently, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a comprehensive study on renewable energy, entitled Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation. The report finds that by 2050, nearly 80 percent of the world's energy supply could be provided by renewable energy sources. WRI Analyst Lutz Weischer, who works on renewable energy policies, sat down to talk about the report’s implications.

Last month, WRI convened a group of international experts to discuss policies and incentives for increasing the use of renewable energy in the developing world. WRI's Davida Wood and Lutz Weischer discuss the key lessons learned at the workshop and their work on helping developing countries make the transition to renewable energy.

Publications

The Role of Policy in Developing Successful Domestic Solar and Wind Industries

This paper examines the development of the solar PV and wind industries across China, Germany, India, Japan, and the United States from 2001–2011. It takes a unique, comparative approach to track the policies and incentives put in place by these key competitors, documents the state of play in...

This working paper identifies key components of smart renewable
energy policy in developing countries, focusing on
the power sector. It also provides recommendations
for maximizing the effectiveness of international
support for deployment of renewable energies,...

Wind power is a nascent industry in the United States, but has the potential to spur job creation. Several studies show that wind power creates more jobs than power generation from fossil fuels. The nature of wind power is more labor-intensive than traditional energy, and it creates jobs in both...

This paper analyzes the global integration of the
solar photovoltaic (PV) sector and looks in detail at the industry’s recent growth patterns, industry cost structure, trade and investment
patterns, government support policies and employment generation potential.

Harnessing the Potential of Open Trade and Investment Flows in the Wind Energy Industry

This working paper maps out the structure and value chains of the wind power industry, analyzes its increasing globalization via cross-border trade and investment flows, and formulates recommendations for policymakers for the design of investment and trade policies to help realize wind energy...

by Lutz Weischer, Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, Peterson Institute for International Economics and Thilo Hanemann, Rhodium Group - December 2009

Searching for Common Ground on an Uneven Playing Field

This paper analyzes relevant measures in emerging U.S. domestic climate policies, describes the objectives of these measures, assesses how they might be imposed, and discusses their implications for both a future climate agreement and the international trading system.

This report discusses the successes and challenges to effective regulation in China. It also addresses U.S. competitiveness concerns in relation to the introduction of U.S. cap-and-trade policies, and specific opportunities for enhanced climate change cooperation between the two countries.